AARoads Forum

Just a silly little poll

Compared to last winter:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/citys-worst-winter-since-98----1898-254004961.html

I'm just gettin warmed up this winter; only had to shovel a few times and only a handful of days below -25C. Nothing like last year.

So no, bring it on, winter 2015  :-D

It hasn't gone on long enough, because it's still going.  We're only halfway through February.

I think it snowed once in December here in Seattle. Once was enough. I'm glad we're into Spring. ;-)

There's still not enough snow to sled or ski in the mountains around Seattle.

Quote from: kkt on February 16, 2015, 11:21:21 PM
There's still not enough snow to sled or ski in the mountains around Seattle.

For those unaware of the situation:

From KOMO News: Mountain snowpack now totally gone in some spots (http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott/Mountain-snowpack-now-totally-gone-in-some-areas-292044551.html)

Quote
The numbers have been ugly...and they're getting uglier by the hour.

The National Weather Service has put out its twice-monthly report on the mountain snowpack and the numbers for Feb. 15 and, well, skiers should probably stop reading here. Perhaps water managers and those who have to battle wildfires might just head on over to the sports sectio...well, maybe the offbeat news?

To those who are brave enough to stomach the results, here goes:

Hurricane Ridge: Current snowpack is...4 inches. It's supposed to have 87". The worst ever before since 1979 was 17" in 2005. You know it's saying something when 2005 had 4 times as much snow as this year.

How about Mt. Baker? That's the one spot due to its elevation that seems to weather the (lack of) storm best in these winters. Uh...just 22 inches up there -- 2 inches less than the current record-warm winter of 1977 had at this point in the winter. You know what Boston calls 22 inches of snow? A lunch break.

Mt. Baker is supposed to have 138 inches there now and even had 107 inches last year as we were amidst our big snow rally.

And to think in 1999, there was 244 inches of snow up there on Feb. 15. Good times...

Snoqualmie Pass? Just 21" of snow (well, down to 20" now). That's just 25 percent of the normal 85" that's supposed to be there. It's been worse -- that 1977 year had just 4" at this point. But give Snoqualmie another few weeks...

Two spots are down single digits-- Mission Ridge (5,170' level) at 9" and Crystal Mountain (4,370' level) at 8". Yes, read that again: 8 inches of snow at the bottom of Crystal Mountain in mid-February. (Do you know what Boston calls 8 inches of snow? They can't remember because 10 inches just fell in the time it took you to read that.) Note to skiers -- those measurements are near the roadway base -- the resorts do have some snow up on the higher runs and are creating some of their own snow so they're still running.

But at least all of those spots can at least say they have *some* snow. Because White Pass roadway? Zero. Nada. Zilch. Bagel -- at least, at the official snowpack measuring gauge about 1/4 mile from the web cam seen here. (Looks like there is a little snow in spots though).

They're supposed to have 54 inches of snow up there now, but instead, they're tied with Phoenix for current official snow cover. (Again, White Pass ski resort does have enough snow on their slopes higher up to be up and running. It's just no snow worries on the drive there.)

The one spot that *does* have snow? Paradise Ranger Station at Mt. Rainier -- living up to its name. It has 57 inches of snow -- not a lot, but at least makes you wonder if Elsa from Frozen might be secretly vacationing there. That's 40 percent of their normal 143 inches by now.

Speaking of which, with the next 10 days remaining essentially dry, if Elsa wants to visit any of our other gorgeous mountain spots...we extend an open-ended invitation.

Paradise is not living up to its reputation.  It usually has about 10' at this time.  The Park requires 5' of snow before they'll authorize sledding, to protect the plants that overwinter under the snow and to protect sledders from breaking through.  We had some lowland rain a week ago, and normally that should fall as snow at Paradise, but it was too warm and fell as rain.

We haven't really had any snow at all here in Oklahoma, just less than an inch in November. We had some thundersleet Sunday night.

Other than that we've had weeks at a time of 70°F highs. So no, I'm not quite ready for tornado season yet.

We have had more than enough abnormal cold here in Maryland, Virginia and D.C.

As compared to eastern Massachusetts, we have almost no snow at all (again, by comparison).

The east coast extends its apologies for stealing everyone's snow this winter and wishes everyone would claim the rest of it before we get buried in it some more. I feel sorry for New England though.

Winter? It's 73 degrees here today, and is going to be in the upper 70s the rest of the week. :-)

Quote from: kj3400 on February 17, 2015, 04:49:43 PM
The east coast extends its apologies for stealing everyone's snow this winter and wishes everyone would claim the rest of it before we get buried in it some more. I feel sorry for New England though.

I would admittedly feel different if I took public transportation to work or was elderly, but since neither of those is the case, I'm actually loving this winter.

Montana is having a disastrously warm winter. I expect most of the west to have a drought and be on fire this summer. Without the snowpack, we're pretty much fucked.

Quote from: OCGuy81 on February 17, 2015, 04:57:17 PM
Winter? It's 73 degrees here today, and is going to be in the upper 70s the rest of the week. :-)

It'll be 3 degrees tomorrow morning, and -8 degrees Thursday and Friday mornings here.  Not quite cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

I would love to see a foot of snow here in NC.  I know New England would like to give some of there mess down south. Bring it on!

Quote from: OCGuy81 on February 17, 2015, 04:57:17 PM
Winter? It's 73 degrees here today, and is going to be in the upper 70s the rest of the week. :-)

Even warmer (80sF/26-29C range) in the Palm Springs area, but some rain fell last weekend. I went to the Riverside county fair/National Date festival on the 21st with my wife, Mom and the rest of family. There's a good huge advantage living in a warm desert climate in winter, except the summers here are HOT triple-digit highs for 4 months straight (ROFL).

This winter reminds me a lot of 93-94, during which I remember about 18 accumulating storms hitting.  I told someone then that I hoped it kept snowing as long as it was going to be cold, and she became almost offended. 

What I have noticed to be the biggest casualty is that everything happens a lot slower, and people are mostly handling that pretty well in my experience.  Of course, I don't ride the T that often.

That leads to the other casualty–travel.  I pick my times and destinations a lot more carefully, and much more easily pass on trips of even a few miles away.  It's gotten better as roads have been continuously widened, but with the extra time involved some trips aren't as worth it.  Just takes a delivery truck that can't get into a snow-filled parking lane, and you're looking at some gridlock.

The amount of snow we've received in the Boston area so far hasn't really bothered me, as our local towns are pretty good at plowing (typically streets are down to bare pavement a couple of days after a major storm).  What is starting to seriously annoy me, however, is the fact our commuter rail system is on a "limited' schedule (i.e. cancelling 26 trains on my line alone) due to the fact they couldn't be bothered to properly maintain and repair their equipment beforehand, so they weren't prepared for the inevitable equipment failures due to the weather.   Because of this, my 'door to door' workday has increased by about two hours, and I'm usually totally sapped by the time I get home, especially if it's a cold day.

And the commuter rail operator has just announced that the "limited" schedule will be in place until March 30th.  Oh boy!

Quote from: SignGeek101 on February 16, 2015, 10:21:50 PM
Compared to last winter:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/citys-worst-winter-since-98----1898-254004961.html

I'm just gettin warmed up this winter; only had to shovel a few times and only a handful of days below -25C. Nothing like last year.

So no, bring it on, winter 2015  :-D

I was in Winnipeg exactly one year ago. The cold was something. I was in Vancouver a couple days later, without a jacket.

Besides that, no, I'm not completely sick of the winter just yet, but that's the skier in me speaking. I'm pretty much tired of every other aspect of this winter. :p

Quote from: Dr Frankenstein on February 27, 2015, 09:39:05 AM
I was in Winnipeg exactly one year ago. The cold was something. I was in Vancouver a couple days later, without a jacket.

I recall reading someplace that Vancouver, B.C. is to Canada as San Diego, Calif. is to the U.S.  - the mildest climates in their respective nations (excluding discontiguous U.S. possessions with warm climates (Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and Hawaii)).

Washington Post: There is light at the end of this winter's cold, dark tunnel (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/02/27/there-is-light-at-the-end-of-this-winters-cold-dark-tunnel/)

QuoteAs we bear another day with freezing temperatures and the chance of record cold tonight (at Dulles International Airport and Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport), this update is intended to reassure you milder weather is truly around the corner. (Hats off to the groundhog, by the way, for calling it right this year.)

QuoteNo, I'm not ready to pronounce winter over. I'll do that once there is no longer a plausible threat of accumulating snow and a sustained period of cold temperatures. That could be a while. (Last year, it wasn't until March 28 that I was able to do that – and then it snowed on March 30, whoops!).

Quote from: cpzilliacus on February 27, 2015, 07:14:32 PM

QuoteNo, I'm not ready to pronounce winter over. I'll do that once there is no longer a plausible threat of accumulating snow and a sustained period of cold temperatures. That could be a while. (Last year, it wasn't until March 28 that I was able to do that – and then it snowed on March 30, whoops!).

For us that won't be till June. We have the most unpredictable weather ever.

I'm enjoying all of the snow here. We haven't had this much in the city proper since 2010.  The extreme cold also doesn't bother me - I'm as snug as a bug with my layers on. The only time the cold was truly miserable was the day when we had crazy cold wind (and wind chills). I stayed in bed pretty much the whole day, lol.


iPhone

Coldest month in 107 years in CT and 4-8" of snow forecasted for March 1st.  I'll be sitting fireside listening to Bing Crosby for Memorial Day.  Thank you Global Warming :banghead:

Lousy Smarch weather.

We're getting more snow this week along with ice/rain, and to think they said March would be warm and nice out!

Freezing rain is falling as I type this. Nice and slippery outside. If you read my thread about shovelling parking spaces.....the guy who acted like an asshole about "his" space is parked directly across the T-intersection. If someone comes down the street too fast and loses control, they'll slide directly into that guy's car. I'd feel some sympathy for the person who did the damage (some, but not much.....drive slower!), but I'd laugh at the guy who left the note. (My wife's car is parked up the street in the middle of a row of parked cars so as not to be on the end by a corner.)

From Scott Sistek, KOMO News: Seattle sets twin records for warmest February, winter on record (http://goo.gl/AzpmnS)

Quote
Seattle has set its record for all-time warmest February since official measurements began at Sea-Tac Airport. The average temperature (high temperature plus low temperature, divided by two) was 48.8 degrees narrowly edging 1977's record at 48.7. (And I mean narrowly. Had Saturday just been one degree cooler, it would have been a tied record instead.)

It's also the warmest February by average low temperature (by more than a full degree), and sixth-warmest by average high temperature.

Quote
While winter officially runs Dec. 21-March 21, "meteorological winter" runs Dec. 1 - Feb. 28 so we can now measure how winter stands up, statistically. And it was a doozy.

This winter will go down as the warmest at Sea-Tac -- by far. The average temperature of Dec. 1 to Feb. 28 was 46.4 degrees, obliterating the previous record for warmest winter on 1991-92 of 45.0 degrees. Normal is just 41.2. This comes on the heels of the second-warmest summer -- and all makes sense when you consider 2014 was the warmest year overall on record at Sea-Tac.

We also claimed the trophy by using average high temperature. The new record is 51.4, breaking the old record of 50.8 set in 1991-92. Average is: 46.5.

They call for more snow Tuesday and Thursday in the northeast.

31 degrees and freezing rain here near Hartford, CT as I write this. It was light snowing and about 25 degrees when I left work at 5:45 PM Eastern.

Our first near-freezing rain since our memories were erased with nine feet of snow.  I'll take frigid windy snow any day.  At least it doesn't stick the cold to you like beaded rain does.

We'll be getting more freezing rain tonight. Fun.
I can't wait for summer!

We have five to eight inches of snow forecast for tomorrow. It rained yesterday, which was nice because the rain washed a lot of the salt gunk off the car. I can't justify spending the money to go through a carwash with that much snow forecast, but I don't like having that crusty white gunk all over the paint.

Quote from: jakeroot on March 01, 2015, 02:57:47 PM
From Scott Sistek, KOMO News: Seattle sets twin records for warmest February, winter on record (http://goo.gl/AzpmnS)

Quote
Seattle has set its record for all-time warmest February since official measurements began at Sea-Tac Airport. The average temperature (high temperature plus low temperature, divided by two) was 48.8 degrees narrowly edging 1977's record at 48.7. (And I mean narrowly. Had Saturday just been one degree cooler, it would have been a tied record instead.)

It's also the warmest February by average low temperature (by more than a full degree), and sixth-warmest by average high temperature.

Quote
While winter officially runs Dec. 21-March 21, "meteorological winter" runs Dec. 1 - Feb. 28 so we can now measure how winter stands up, statistically. And it was a doozy.

This winter will go down as the warmest at Sea-Tac -- by far. The average temperature of Dec. 1 to Feb. 28 was 46.4 degrees, obliterating the previous record for warmest winter on 1991-92 of 45.0 degrees. Normal is just 41.2. This comes on the heels of the second-warmest summer -- and all makes sense when you consider 2014 was the warmest year overall on record at Sea-Tac.

We also claimed the trophy by using average high temperature. The new record is 51.4, breaking the old record of 50.8 set in 1991-92. Average is: 46.5.

Wow! At least I lucked out, having missed out on those epic Chicago winters I used to go through in my childhood.

Quote from: Henry on March 04, 2015, 10:26:20 AM
Wow! At least I lucked out, having missed out on those epic Chicago winters I used to go through in my childhood.

Man no doubt. I will never forget January of 82 and the -26F at O'hare with wind chills in the -70F range. It was so cold that the nail heads in the ceiling of our dining room were freezing which caused little ice spots to from on the ceiling even though it was a comfortable 72F in the house.


I won't ever forget climbing up on the roof of our house as a 9 year old to help shovel it off, taking time out to dive off the roof into the front yard into snow drifts that were almost as tall as the house.


I remember the snow forts we used to build and the epic snowball fights we'd have as a neighborhood. Even the parents got involved. My fort was heavily "armored" by adding water to  the top of the walls creating a solid sheet of ice that no snowball/iceball could penetrate. Good times!


I'd trade this little ice storm we are fixing to get tomorrow night that will completely shut my town down most of the day on Friday for that any day.

I'm ready to harm Punxsutawney Phil. This weather is killing my paychecks.

Quote from: robbones on March 04, 2015, 03:21:29 PM
I'm ready to harm Punxsutawney Phil. This weather is killing my paychecks.

Careful, he has dangerous friends.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpixel.nymag.com%2Fimgs%2Fdaily%2Fintelligencer%2F2015%2F02%2F02%2F02-groundhog-bite.w529.h352.2x.gif&hash=193b7ee71dc6b7f6c88a2b9a55a5bbff33a7b953)

Twice we had rain in CA in 2 weeks: Feb. 22-23 and March 1st (moderate hail fell on Huntington Beach). We're in the worst drought since the 19th century, need the rain BADLY. The lack of significant snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is of great concern. Only once it snowed where palm trees grow: Lake Elsinore-Temecula in southern CA had over a foot and mixed snow-rain in Fontana-Rancho Cucamonga and Pasadena-Altadena on New years (Dec 30-Jan 2). Not enough to cancel the Rose Parade or the Rose Bowl game, but high temps were around 40F. Rarely happens in areas under 2000 foot elevation in so CA.

No, it hasn't, if you're a Northeastern newspaper.

New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/07/us/remnant-of-bostons-brutal-winter-threatens-to-outlast-summer.html?referrer=&_r=0

Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/07/07/the-new-york-times-just-noticed-boston-never-melting-snow-piles/Q7934DkquGCLXusQjfp7mI/story.html

Washington Post story on Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/07/07/boston-thinks-its-funny-the-ny-times-just-noticed-their-huge-snow-pile-is-still-there/

AARoads post on Washington Post story on Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14785.msg2077046#msg2077046

How meta.

Asalt it.

Don't forget that last ten days of December 2015 are still to come

Quote from: Duke87 on July 07, 2015, 07:00:34 PM
AARoads post on Washington Post story on Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14785.msg2077046#msg2077046

Obviously these folks need to take a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Snow in the Keweenaw can be found in the woods, shaded by the trees in August and September.  One year (1995-96) had 328 inches of snowfall over the season.  Some it failed to melt before the next snows started in September/October.

Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2015, 01:39:37 PM

Quote from: Duke87 on July 07, 2015, 07:00:34 PM
AARoads post on Washington Post story on Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14785.msg2077046#msg2077046

Obviously these folks need to take a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Snow in the Keweenaw can be found in the woods, shaded by the trees in August and September.  One year (1995-96) had 328 inches of snowfall over the season.  Some it failed to melt before the next snows started in September/October.

Sounds miserable.  I lived in Superior, WI for a while; don't miss the winter than much.

Quote from: Rothman on July 10, 2015, 02:30:26 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2015, 01:39:37 PM

Quote from: Duke87 on July 07, 2015, 07:00:34 PM
AARoads post on Washington Post story on Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14785.msg2077046#msg2077046

Obviously these folks need to take a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Snow in the Keweenaw can be found in the woods, shaded by the trees in August and September.  One year (1995-96) had 328 inches of snowfall over the season.  Some it failed to melt before the next snows started in September/October.

Sounds miserable.  I lived in Superior, WI for a while; don't miss the winter than much.

Miserable?  How else would you have Winter Carnival with gigantic snow statues otherwise?

 

Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2015, 04:15:22 PM

Quote from: Rothman on July 10, 2015, 02:30:26 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2015, 01:39:37 PM

Quote from: Duke87 on July 07, 2015, 07:00:34 PM
AARoads post on Washington Post story on Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14785.msg2077046#msg2077046

Obviously these folks need to take a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Snow in the Keweenaw can be found in the woods, shaded by the trees in August and September.  One year (1995-96) had 328 inches of snowfall over the season.  Some it failed to melt before the next snows started in September/October.

Sounds miserable.  I lived in Superior, WI for a while; don't miss the winter than much.

Miserable?  How else would you have Winter Carnival with gigantic snow statues otherwise?

Ah yes.  Gigantic snow statues make all those months of winter more tolerable.  Silly me, I forgot. :meh:

Quote from: Rothman on July 10, 2015, 05:04:32 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2015, 04:15:22 PM

Quote from: Rothman on July 10, 2015, 02:30:26 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2015, 01:39:37 PM

Quote from: Duke87 on July 07, 2015, 07:00:34 PM
AARoads post on Washington Post story on Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14785.msg2077046#msg2077046

Obviously these folks need to take a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Snow in the Keweenaw can be found in the woods, shaded by the trees in August and September.  One year (1995-96) had 328 inches of snowfall over the season.  Some it failed to melt before the next snows started in September/October.

Sounds miserable.  I lived in Superior, WI for a while; don't miss the winter than much.

Miserable?  How else would you have Winter Carnival with gigantic snow statues otherwise?

Ah yes.  Gigantic snow statues make all those months of winter more tolerable.  Silly me, I forgot. :meh:

Does it help that the pep band serves deep fried Twinkies?  After they remove their frozen lips from their mouthpieces after the parade.

Quote from: Rothman on July 10, 2015, 05:04:32 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2015, 04:15:22 PM

Quote from: Rothman on July 10, 2015, 02:30:26 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 10, 2015, 01:39:37 PM

Quote from: Duke87 on July 07, 2015, 07:00:34 PM
AARoads post on Washington Post story on Boston.com story on New York Times story on remaining Boston snow:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=14785.msg2077046#msg2077046

Obviously these folks need to take a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  Snow in the Keweenaw can be found in the woods, shaded by the trees in August and September.  One year (1995-96) had 328 inches of snowfall over the season.  Some it failed to melt before the next snows started in September/October.

Sounds miserable.  I lived in Superior, WI for a while; don't miss the winter than much.

Miserable?  How else would you have Winter Carnival with gigantic snow statues otherwise?

Ah yes.  Gigantic snow statues make all those months of winter more tolerable.  Silly me, I forgot. :meh:

Why do people think winter is miserable anyway?

I'll tell you what's really miserable: 95 degrees and dewpoints in the 70s.  That's miserable!  A little snow is just fun.

Not if you have to shovel it.  And snow tires (plus rims and hooking in the TPMS so the car won't constant beep and block the clock and radio with full screen warnings, plus the peace of mind of knowing that any weird vibration is probably the road and not a flat tire if the light is off) are expensive enough to be an issue if you're still (re)building your savings.  The former is solvable (mostly) by living in an apartment.  Meanwhile the latter just gets even worse if you're in an apartment due to storage.  Plus having to tires them between storage and the car four times a year (twice per swap) in filthy dirt laden bags filled with holes that just scream "must vacuum car interior" (my trunk doesn't have room for all four tires).  Yeesh.  And the commuting issues... I've had days where traffic moved no faster than 5 mph up the Northway due to snow.  And that's in ALBANY, which has a very mild climate compared to the rest of upstate NY.  My boss lives out in the hills and needs chains to get in to work on a GOOD day in winter!

Quote from: Brandon on July 12, 2015, 09:46:44 AM
Why do people think winter is miserable anyway?

I'll tell you what's really miserable: 95 degrees and dewpoints in the 70s.  That's miserable!  A little snow is just fun.

I would so much rather be "freezing" cold and have snow then have to deal with scorching temperatures with disgustingly high humidity. You can warm up much faster than you can cool off.

Quote from: Brandon on July 12, 2015, 09:46:44 AM

I'll tell you what's really miserable: 95 degrees and dewpoints in the 70s.  That's miserable!  A little snow is just fun.

Crazytalk.

Quote from: Zeffy on July 12, 2015, 06:24:44 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 12, 2015, 09:46:44 AM
Why do people think winter is miserable anyway?

I'll tell you what's really miserable: 95 degrees and dewpoints in the 70s.  That's miserable!  A little snow is just fun.

I would so much rather be "freezing" cold and have snow then have to deal with scorching temperatures with disgustingly high humidity. You can warm up much faster than you can cool off.

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmoots.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FRandy-Snow-Suit-A-Christmas-Story-2.jpg&hash=9ecb4af204ee647687b3aaf7ae78415e705908e7)

Fun...fun...fun. :P

Quote from: Rothman on July 12, 2015, 06:53:52 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 12, 2015, 09:46:44 AM

I'll tell you what's really miserable: 95 degrees and dewpoints in the 70s.  That's miserable!  A little snow is just fun.

Crazytalk.

Let me remind you of that when I'm sweating buckets uncontrollably.  Sweating like that is no fun at all, IMHO.

Quote from: Brandon on July 12, 2015, 09:38:21 PM

Quote from: Rothman on July 12, 2015, 06:53:52 PM

Quote from: Brandon on July 12, 2015, 09:46:44 AM

I'll tell you what's really miserable: 95 degrees and dewpoints in the 70s.  That's miserable!  A little snow is just fun.

Crazytalk.

Let me remind you of that when I'm sweating buckets uncontrollably.  Sweating like that is no fun at all, IMHO.

I too hate sweating (and it's bad here in the Northwest because many places have no AC) but I prefer sweating to driving in the snow.

The entire country can't be fortunate enough to live in the relatively small areas of the country (essentially just a few areas in California, including the maritime parts of the Bay Area) where it rarely snows and never gets very hot in the summer.  In terms of power consumption, it is marginally more sensible to live in places that require A/C use in the summer because the national power burden of A/C is about one-quarter that of heating.

If I were choosing a place to live regardless of family ties and so on, I doubt I would live as far south as Wichita, but I would certainly have reservations about living far enough north that undercarriage rust on a daily driver would be a virtual inevitability.

Quote from: J N Winkler on July 13, 2015, 12:08:23 PM
In terms of power consumption, it is marginally more sensible to live in places that require A/C use in the summer because the national power burden of A/C is about one-quarter that of heating.

I'm going to throw some cold water on that.  The power burden of heating is mostly borne by natural gas, not electricity.  Natural gas for heating is tremendously cheaper than electrical power for A/C.

Quote from: Brandon on July 13, 2015, 02:35:54 PMI'm going to throw some cold water on that.  The power burden of heating is mostly borne by natural gas, not electricity.  Natural gas for heating is tremendously cheaper than electrical power for A/C.

The four-to-one split is based on energy usage.  Besides the disparity in price, I suspect electricity is more carbon-intensive per energy unit in the US since we still generate 46% of our electricity from coal.  (We are doing better than China and Australia, where these percentages are 77% and 70% respectively, but not as good as the UK or Canada, where they are 30% and 12% respectively.)

But it is also arguable that we spend far too much energy on home heating.  The nation's oldest and hardest-to-upgrade housing stock is in parts of the country where winters are especially severe; new houses built to Passivhaus standards cut the use of energy for interior space heating almost to nothing, except at latitudes not encountered in the US outside Alaska.  The marginal carbon burden of A/C has the potential to be almost nothing in Sunbelt states where the necessary electricity can be supplied by wind, hydro, or solar (I say "marginal" because industrial production of the necessary plant demands a reliable supply of electricity, which typically implies either coal or nuclear in parts of the country that don't have access to hydro power).

Quote from: Brandon on July 13, 2015, 02:35:54 PM
I'm going to throw some cold water on that.  The power burden of heating is mostly borne by natural gas, not electricity.  Natural gas for heating is tremendously cheaper than electrical power for A/C.

That depends on region. From what I understand, most of the NE US uses something called heating oil in the winter instead of natural gas, propane, or electricity.

Heating oil puts you at the whim of the diesel fuel pricing market. While it makes sense for remote areas, many of the houses around here with oil heat have access to natural gas lines in the street. Heck, I've been in houses with oil heat that have natural gas powered hot water heater and ranges! That was likely a case of someone being too cheap to replace a dinosaur boiler, even though it would quickly pay itself off in increased efficiency and lower fuel costs.

In my area, builders were still installing single-pane glass with storm windows (a not-very-effective "double glazing" solution) well into the seventies.  My parents built a house in 1979 that had real double-glazing, and also paid extra to have additional insulation and a more efficient HVAC system put in than the builder's defaults.  When they had to have the HVAC replaced about 27 years later, an even more efficient system was put in that entailed installing additional lagging in the basement, and the HVAC repairmen told them that the old system had probably saved them many thousands of dollars over its life.

Meanwhile, standards for new construction have moved on, and if you do not specify triple-glazing when building new, people think you are chucking money out the window.  My parents had to have a large picture window replaced about five years ago due to frame rot and the replacement is triple-glazed because that was all that was readily available in that size.

And all of this is in an area that experienced its major population growth spurt after World War II.  The problems with excess durability of thermally inefficient building materials are almost unimaginably worse in Northeastern cities whose populations have stayed essentially flat since 1945.

There is a relatively little incentive for owners of rental property to upgrade oil systems to gas, even in places already served by gas like you mentioned.  The conversion rate is a little better in owner-occupied units, but gasfitters do not work cheap, and a modern efficient system can cost more than a few thousands to buy and install.

As for triple pane windows, they are still not all that common to install, again because of significant added cost.  We're talking easily $500 apiece for a nice double-hung, with plenty of opportunity to spend more.

However, energy codes are getting tougher, and I think you will see more of them. Cities and towns in Massachusetts are all moving toward something called "stretch code," which doubles a lot of the energy efficiency standards.

As for hot versus cold, it seems to me that one should either live where one is content with the weather, or not complain.  As I have gotten older it has become apparent to me that complaining about the weather is one of the more arrogant activities one can engage in.  It implies that one is entitled to nature accommodating one's needs.  Moreover, it's a lousy use of energy that could be used on solvable problems, of which the weather is not one.

Heating oil is still very common in the Northeast.  In fact, it was a popular conversion from electric heat up until at least the early 1990s.

Quote from: NJRoadfan on July 13, 2015, 04:01:35 PM
Heating oil puts you at the whim of the diesel fuel pricing market. While it makes sense for remote areas, many of the houses around here with oil heat have access to natural gas lines in the street. Heck, I've been in houses with oil heat that have natural gas powered hot water heater and ranges! That was likely a case of someone being too cheap to replace a dinosaur boiler, even though it would quickly pay itself off in increased efficiency and lower fuel costs.

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PM

Quote from: NJRoadfan on July 13, 2015, 04:01:35 PM
Heating oil puts you at the whim of the diesel fuel pricing market. While it makes sense for remote areas, many of the houses around here with oil heat have access to natural gas lines in the street. Heck, I've been in houses with oil heat that have natural gas powered hot water heater and ranges! That was likely a case of someone being too cheap to replace a dinosaur boiler, even though it would quickly pay itself off in increased efficiency and lower fuel costs.

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

I do.  Natural gas-fueled.  Water heater = gas-fueled.  Range = electric.

And I do mean steam heat.  Not hot water.  Steam.

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PM

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Not steam, but hot water.  Richard Trethewey of This Old House prefers it to forced air, because it's more constant.  (Of course he's from New England too, and boilers work well with fuel oil.)  Forced air has that brief time when the fan turns on and it blows cooled air out of the ducts until the warm air starts coming out.

And regarding extremes of cold vs hot - you can put on more clothes and wrap up for the cold.  You can only take off so much when it is hot.

Quote from: GaryV on July 13, 2015, 08:05:10 PM

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PM

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Not steam, but hot water. 

No. I've got steam heat and the Burnham boiler and radiators to prove it.

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PMPeople seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Yup.  It is the norm in New England and in much of western Europe.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on July 13, 2015, 04:54:10 PMAs for hot versus cold, it seems to me that one should either live where one is content with the weather, or not complain.  As I have gotten older it has become apparent to me that complaining about the weather is one of the more arrogant activities one can engage in.  It implies that one is entitled to nature accommodating one's needs.  Moreover, it's a lousy use of energy that could be used on solvable problems, of which the weather is not one.

I do not usually see complaints about the weather by themselves as proof of an entitled attitude.  The weather isn't a badly cooked dish one can send back to the kitchen for rectification, and this is generally recognized.  In my experience, complaints about the weather are either infrequent cris de coeur or part of a pattern of complaining about anything and everything that is indicative of social maladjustment.

Shopping for a good climate can entail compromising employment, housing, and leisure opportunities, and at best it is only playing the odds.  Everyplace on Earth has really bad weather every once in a while.  The best one can do is to arrange shelter to accommodate the plausible extremes for the climate zone one is in, and support provision of some form of emergency cover where it is required, such as basements for schools in Tornado Alley, or cooling centers for the homeless in cities like Chicago.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on July 13, 2015, 04:46:39 PMAs for triple pane windows, they are still not all that common to install, again because of significant added cost.  We're talking easily $500 apiece for a nice double-hung, with plenty of opportunity to spend more.

In this area I don't think triple-glazing would ordinarily be considered except as part of new construction.  The house I grew up in was built for something like $100,000 and I have been told that complete reglazing, with triple-pane windows in 19 openings, would cost at least $20,000.  It is really quite astonishing how expensive windows are.

In Britain, where historic buildings with single-paned windows often have listed status, a common approach to retrofitting for energy efficiency is to install fairly discreet storm windows on one side or the other of the original glazing.

I also don't think the cost of a sheet of glass increases linearly with surface area beyond a certain fairly narrow size range.  I have relatives who had to have a patio door replaced after burglars damaged it by using as a point of entry to clean out the house over several days.  (It was the off-season.)  The patio door was the standard two-pane arrangement and the thieves did damage not just to the frame but also to parts of the wall just outside the opening.  Repairs ultimately cost well over $10,000.

Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2015, 08:06:50 PM

Quote from: GaryV on July 13, 2015, 08:05:10 PM

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PM

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Not steam, but hot water. 

No. I've got steam heat and the Burnham boiler and radiators to prove it.

Steam here, too.  And it's not just old cast iron, either–there is even at least one company around here selling sleek, modern new steam radiator designs. 

Quote from: Pete from Boston on July 13, 2015, 08:47:55 PM

Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2015, 08:06:50 PM

Quote from: GaryV on July 13, 2015, 08:05:10 PM

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PM

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Not steam, but hot water. 

No. I've got steam heat and the Burnham boiler and radiators to prove it.

Steam here, too.  And it's not just old cast iron, either–there is even at least one company around here selling sleek, modern new steam radiator designs. 

Heh.  I've got some cast iron piping in here.

Seattle is mixed.  Natural gas pipes only come to about 1/2 the houses, so those half mostly have gas forced air furnaces.  Of those without natural gas, it's about 3/4 oil, supplied by truck, and 1/4 electric.

Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2015, 09:03:42 PM

Quote from: Pete from Boston on July 13, 2015, 08:47:55 PM

Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2015, 08:06:50 PM

Quote from: GaryV on July 13, 2015, 08:05:10 PM

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PM

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Not steam, but hot water. 

No. I've got steam heat and the Burnham boiler and radiators to prove it.

Steam here, too.  And it's not just old cast iron, either–there is even at least one company around here selling sleek, modern new steam radiator designs. 

Heh.  I've got some cast iron piping in here.

Steam seems to run through a variety of pipes in this area–steel/iron, copper, and even brass (which is potentially disastrous because it corrodes and gets brittle). Nearly all steam systems here run through big old cast-iron radiators, meaning there is a brisk trade in castoff radiators. 

We have steam heat here too. Cast iron pipes, all gravity powered. The boiler itself doesn't require any electric (uses a now banned millivolt thermopile to run the gas valve) so we have heat when the power goes out for extended periods. In terms of heating its great, you don't have large swings in temperature when the system cycles like with forced air. The radiators in this house are set in the wall, so they don't take up all kinds of space. The only downside is steam boilers aren't available in efficient configurations like circulating hot water is.

Most of the complaints you will hear about gravity steam heat are usually from people with systems that aren't working right. If the system isn't balanced, you will have problems, plus that wonderful banging of the pipes at 2am when the system decides to surge.

Quote from: NJRoadfan on July 13, 2015, 11:08:50 PM
Most of the complaints you will hear about gravity steam heat are usually from people with systems that aren't working right. If the system isn't balanced, you will have problems, plus that wonderful banging of the pipes at 2am when the system decides to surge.

I've sort of given up on making sure my pipes are sloped the right way.  Seems whenever one gets fixed another gets kinked the wrong way.  Bang bang bang bang... :D

Apparently, the final remnants of Boston's snowfall from this past winter has finally melted as of yesterday (7/13/15).

It appears Boston's last snow farm has finally melted
The day has come. (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/07/13/appears-boston-last-snow-farm-has-finally-melted/M3ag1L8yKTI1iiiWNhHGLM/story.html)

See progression video in the above-link.

Dammit.  That's the last time I buy an August Ski Pass from someone in the subway.

Quote from: GaryV on July 13, 2015, 08:05:10 PM

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PM

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Not steam, but hot water.  Richard Trethewey of This Old House prefers it to forced air, because it's more constant.  (Of course he's from New England too, and boilers work well with fuel oil.)  Forced air has that brief time when the fan turns on and it blows cooled air out of the ducts until the warm air starts coming out.

My parent's house is very rare (I've not seen another outside those built as the same thing) in that it has a hot air vent system (working by convection, rather than pumped via fans), rather than the near universal in the UK (for domestic buildings) hot water/steam fed radiator system. It warms up as quickly as other houses.

It does look better without the large metal radiators on walls (which get hot, unlike the airvents), but if there's an issue with the boiler (hot water, and the hot air), it's hard to get someone to fix it as it is so rare.

I'm trying to work out how you could have hot running water without a boiler (gas or electric) in the house (sure, an apartment block can share). While electric showers heat the water there, that doesn't help with sinks and baths. Obviously there's Icelandic solutions of warm 'waste' water from geothermal power stations being piped straight into people's houses.

Quote from: english si on July 14, 2015, 01:27:25 PMI'm trying to work out how you could have hot running water without a boiler (gas or electric) in the house (sure, an apartment block can share). While electric showers heat the water there, that doesn't help with sinks and baths. Obviously there's Icelandic solutions of warm 'waste' water from geothermal power stations being piped straight into people's houses.

In American houses that have forced-air heating, the norm is to provide a separate hot water heater that can be either electrically powered or gas-fired.  It is insulated to limit heat loss, and hot water pipes are also lagged, especially in recently built houses oriented toward thermal efficiency.  The typical lifetime is about seven years.

Electric showers are almost unknown in the US.  Hot water heaters are usually plumbed to supply everything that uses hot water, including not just showers, baths, and sinks but also dishwashers and clothes washers.  If you read American genre fiction, you occasionally see indirect references to hot water heaters, e.g. in noir crime novels where the protagonist has been out among the sleazebuckets and is so repulsed by the experience that he or she showers until the "tank is empty" (hot water heaters have a finite tank capacity and once this is exhausted, it takes time to heat a fresh load of water to the hot-water supply temperature, which is usually 140° F since this is considered the minimum to allow dishwashers to sanitize dishes properly).  Most people also try to schedule their showers not to coincide with hot loads of laundry in the washer.

Quote from: J N Winkler on July 14, 2015, 02:27:23 PM

Quote from: english si on July 14, 2015, 01:27:25 PMI'm trying to work out how you could have hot running water without a boiler (gas or electric) in the house (sure, an apartment block can share). While electric showers heat the water there, that doesn't help with sinks and baths. Obviously there's Icelandic solutions of warm 'waste' water from geothermal power stations being piped straight into people's houses.

In American houses that have forced-air heating, the norm is to provide a separate hot water heater that can be either electrically powered or gas-fired.  It is insulated to limit heat loss, and hot water pipes are also lagged, especially in recently built houses oriented toward thermal efficiency.  The typical lifetime is about seven years.

However, there are also tankless hot water heaters (electricity or natural gas) that heat the water moving through them "on demand".

One of the major advantages of forced-air heating is the reuse of the exact same vent system for A/C.

Quote from: J N Winkler on July 14, 2015, 02:27:23 PM
Electric showers are almost unknown in the US.  Hot water heaters are usually plumbed to supply everything that uses hot water, including not just showers, baths, and sinks but also dishwashers and clothes washers.  If you read American genre fiction, you occasionally see indirect references to hot water heaters, e.g. in noir crime novels where the protagonist has been out among the sleazebuckets and is so repulsed by the experience that he or she showers until the "tank is empty" (hot water heaters have a finite tank capacity and once this is exhausted, it takes time to heat a fresh load of water to the hot-water supply temperature, which is usually 140° F since this is considered the minimum to allow dishwashers to sanitize dishes properly).  Most people also try to schedule their showers not to coincide with hot loads of laundry in the washer.

Most dishwashers now incorporate an electric heater, so you can set the hot water heater to about 110 F to be more efficient and not scald a child or elderly person who accidentally turns the water on hot all the way.

Quote from: Brandon on July 14, 2015, 03:03:11 PM

Quote from: J N Winkler on July 14, 2015, 02:27:23 PM

Quote from: english si on July 14, 2015, 01:27:25 PMI'm trying to work out how you could have hot running water without a boiler (gas or electric) in the house (sure, an apartment block can share). While electric showers heat the water there, that doesn't help with sinks and baths. Obviously there's Icelandic solutions of warm 'waste' water from geothermal power stations being piped straight into people's houses.

In American houses that have forced-air heating, the norm is to provide a separate hot water heater that can be either electrically powered or gas-fired.  It is insulated to limit heat loss, and hot water pipes are also lagged, especially in recently built houses oriented toward thermal efficiency.  The typical lifetime is about seven years.

However, there are also tankless hot water heaters (electricity or natural gas) that heat the water moving through them "on demand".

One of the major advantages of forced-air heating is the reuse of the exact same vent system for A/C.

Tankless tend to be significantly more expensive, rarely installed unless the existing unit kicks and the homeowner already has to replace.  The long-term savings favor smaller households that otherwise waste a lot of electricity/gas heating unused water.

Does anyone here use a heat exchanger?  Folks I know who have built super-insulated (very air-tight) homes use them for fresh air flow, but I know little about how they work in practice.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on July 14, 2015, 04:35:53 PMDoes anyone here use a heat exchanger?  Folks I know who have built super-insulated (very air-tight) homes use them for fresh air flow, but I know little about how they work in practice.

I don't have one and don't know anyone who has.  However, I have heard of heat pumps being used as part of energy-efficiency retrofits in Britain and apparently one of the more important considerations is to have a yard ("garden") large enough that the pump won't turn it into a thermokarst.

The reduction in air exchange rate is one of the few concerns I have about Passivhaus standards and energy-efficient housing in general.  A low rate not only means bad smells linger longer, but can also be a long-term health disaster if the house is built on radon-bearing rock.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on July 13, 2015, 04:46:39 PM
There is a relatively little incentive for owners of rental property to upgrade oil systems to gas, even in places already served by gas like you mentioned.  The conversion rate is a little better in owner-occupied units, but gasfitters do not work cheap, and a modern efficient system can cost more than a few thousands to buy and install.

*Forenote: I work with energy efficiency on a daily basis. This is my field of expertise.

The trouble with boilers is that replacing them is expensive. So expensive that even if the boiler is an inefficient clunker, the cost of replacing it will outweigh any potential savings. If you compare full cost to full savings, the payback period on a boiler replacement is measured in decades, not years.
For this reason, nobody ever replaces a boiler unless they have to, because their existing boiler is at the end of its useful life if not outright failed. This naturally makes conversion rates lag because natural gas has not been greatly cheaper than oil for that long compared to the average life of a boiler.

That said, there are other considerations. A boiler burning oil can never be more than 85% or so thermally efficient because going above that would require dropping the exhaust temperature to the point where water vapor in it would condense before reaching the top of the stack, which given the SOx produced when burning oil is a problem since you'll get sulfuric acid and that will destroy your boiler real quick. With natural gas, however, you can design boilers to be 95% thermally efficient or higher, and this condensation is not a major problem because natural gas does not produce any significant amount of SOx when burned.

A lot of rental properties in New York City have moved off of oil onto gas in the past five years or so since the city mandated that starting with the 2014 heating season, burning #6 fuel oil would become illegal. Any buildings that were using #6 oil were forced to convert by regulation, many decided to convert to natural gas rather than to #2 oil.

As for heat exchangers, they are plenty common in large commercial properties and they are a great way of keeping heat in (or out, in the summer) while still meeting ventilation requirements. I have never seen one in a single family home, but then I don't work with single family homes so I can't speak to how common this may be.


Meanwhile in terms of energy, yes, an air conditioner will likely move more than 3 units of heat energy for every unit of energy it consumes. A boiler, by thermodynamics, cannot create more than 1 unit of heat energy for every unit of energy it consumes. But, heat pumps can beat that since they move heat rather than creating it. If they were more commonplace, heating would require less energy.

There are some major caveats here, though.
One, electric generation is usually quite inefficient - less than 50%, even. So figure that for every unit of electricity you consume, you are consuming at least two equivalent units of fuel - as opposed to one equivalent unit for burning the fuel in your home.
Another is that, generally speaking, electrical infrastructure struggles to meet peak demand in the summer far more than gas/oil infrastructure struggles to meet peak demand in the winter. Supplying fuel in bulk is easier than supplying electrons in bulk, primarily because fuel can be stored in bulk and electricity really can't. Oil and gas production is largely constant and it is stored until it is needed. Electric production has to ramp up and down to match demand since it can't be stored.
And last but not least, if you live in a climate which gets humid, that is going to have a major influence on air conditioning needs. The specific heat of water is four times the specific heat of dry air. So, in terms of energy required, average relative humidity is also a consideration, not just average temperature.

One final bit of trivia I leave you with - for large buildings, there is typically a balance point at about 55 degrees outdoor air temperature where energy consumption is at a minimum, since this is the point at which an occupied building need neither be heated nor cooled. In a perfect, optimally energy efficient world, it would always be 55 degrees outside.

Quote from: english si on July 14, 2015, 01:27:25 PM

Quote from: GaryV on July 13, 2015, 08:05:10 PM

Quote from: realjd on July 13, 2015, 07:51:44 PM

People seriously have personal boilers and steam heat in their house?

Not steam, but hot water.  Richard Trethewey of This Old House prefers it to forced air, because it's more constant.  (Of course he's from New England too, and boilers work well with fuel oil.)  Forced air has that brief time when the fan turns on and it blows cooled air out of the ducts until the warm air starts coming out.

My parent's house is very rare (I've not seen another outside those built as the same thing) in that it has a hot air vent system (working by convection, rather than pumped via fans), rather than the near universal in the UK (for domestic buildings) hot water/steam fed radiator system. It warms up as quickly as other houses.

It does look better without the large metal radiators on walls (which get hot, unlike the airvents), but if there's an issue with the boiler (hot water, and the hot air), it's hard to get someone to fix it as it is so rare.

A few years ago, my wife and I rented a flat in central London for a week. The heat came from the floor itself. It was really cool and not something I'd seen before. Is that common in the UK or something fancy that only rich Londoners would pay for?

Quote from: Duke87 on July 15, 2015, 01:06:57 AM
That said, there are other considerations. A boiler burning oil can never be more than 85% or so thermally efficient because going above that would require dropping the exhaust temperature to the point where water vapor in it would condense before reaching the top of the stack, which given the SOx produced when burning oil is a problem since you'll get sulfuric acid and that will destroy your boiler real quick. With natural gas, however, you can design boilers to be 95% thermally efficient or higher, and this condensation is not a major problem because natural gas does not produce any significant amount of SOx when burned.

First of all, that was a very informative post useful for anyone who lives, well, anywhere. 

As for the paragraph quoted above, is it possible to achieve those higher efficiencies using powered exhaust to remove more condensation, or is that just not done on oil burners?  Currently I only notice it on new gas burners.

Quote from: Duke87 on July 15, 2015, 01:06:57 AM
There are some major caveats here, though.
One, electric generation is usually quite inefficient - less than 50%, even. So figure that for every unit of electricity you consume, you are consuming at least two equivalent units of fuel - as opposed to one equivalent unit for burning the fuel in your home.
Another is that, generally speaking, electrical infrastructure struggles to meet peak demand in the summer far more than gas/oil infrastructure struggles to meet peak demand in the winter. Supplying fuel in bulk is easier than supplying electrons in bulk, primarily because fuel can be stored in bulk and electricity really can't. Oil and gas production is largely constant and it is stored until it is needed. Electric production has to ramp up and down to match demand since it can't be stored.

Excellent discussion.

Regarding electric generation, don't forget that some of the electricity that gets "created" at a generating station is "lost" from the point where it gets sent out onto the transmission grid until it arrives at the customer premises for use.

I have read estimates that range from as low as 6% to as high as 15%, depending on an assortment of factors that I am not qualified to discuss, except perhaps for distance - the longer the distance from the generator to the customer, the greater the loss (all else being equal).

I'd like to give Duke87 my own thanks for sharing his HVAC expertise.

Quote from: realjd on July 15, 2015, 08:37:23 AMA few years ago, my wife and I rented a flat in central London for a week. The heat came from the floor itself. It was really cool and not something I'd seen before. Is that common in the UK or something fancy that only rich Londoners would pay for?

That is underfloor heating.  I have personally never seen it in the UK; my first experience with it was actually in a private home in Alaska.  It is preferred for both comfort and efficiency since having the heat come from under the floor allows extremities such as the feet to be brought to a comfortable temperature with less input energy.  However, it is rarely used because it is very difficult to retrofit into older buildings.  In the UK its first use was actually in council houses (social housing) soon after World War II, and it acquired a bad reputation since the early systems were unreliable.  Newer systems are much better but British homebuyers are still not likely to choose a house on the basis that it has that type of heating, because the general rule of thumb is to avoid buying newly built houses, which tend to have poor workmanship and cramped room sizes.

So far nobody has mentioned regulation of interior humidity.  In the houses I have lived in without forced-air heating (mainly in the UK; my experience includes one building with hot-water heating and another with storage heating, an abomination that still survives in Australia as well), there is no active control of interior humidity.  However, this is necessary in buildings with forced-air heating because the air straight from the furnace is bone-dry and won't just dehydrate the inhabitants, leading to problems like chapped skin and dental caries, but will also cause buildups of static electricity in carpeted areas that make it very painful to touch metal objects like doorknobs.  Years ago I spent a couple of nights in winter in a motel in Santa Fe that looked quite nice inside and out, but had no working humidifiers, and by the third day of very dry air I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

In my experience, the problems with forced-air heating that have already been mentioned--such as cold air being fanned out of the vents before hot air from the furnace comes onstream, or large swings in indoor temperature--are not major considerations with modern systems in well-insulated houses that have double- or triple-glazed windows in every opening.  However, the problems of humidity regulation still aren't solved and may not be completely solvable.  I have found that forced-air HVAC now controls humidity tightly enough that I can get through a winter without chapped lips, which was not the case twenty years ago, but still allows swings in local humidity that I can feel with my nose (dry air often smells dusty), and can do little about condensation or freezing on windowpanes on extremely cold days except by pumping more water vapor into the air.  Even in houses with double-glazed windowpanes, it is often necessary for the homeowner to compromise between comfort and a greatly increased rate of window frame rot in unusually cold winters.  (Triple glazing helps somewhat and this is actually another reason to consider retrofitting it into an existing house.)

Quote from: J N Winkler on July 15, 2015, 12:09:51 PM
I'd like to give Duke87 my own thanks for sharing his HVAC expertise.

Quote from: realjd on July 15, 2015, 08:37:23 AMA few years ago, my wife and I rented a flat in central London for a week. The heat came from the floor itself. It was really cool and not something I'd seen before. Is that common in the UK or something fancy that only rich Londoners would pay for?

That is underfloor heating.  I have personally never seen it in the UK; my first experience with it was actually in a private home in Alaska.  It is preferred for both comfort and efficiency since having the heat come from under the floor allows extremities such as the feet to be brought to a comfortable temperature with less input energy.  However, it is rarely used because it is very difficult to retrofit into older buildings.  In the UK its first use was actually in council houses (social housing) soon after World War II, and it acquired a bad reputation since the early systems were unreliable.  Newer systems are much better but British homebuyers are still not likely to choose a house on the basis that it has that type of heating, because the general rule of thumb is to avoid buying newly built houses, which tend to have poor workmanship and cramped room sizes.

I have experienced such heating in some rooms in the Nordic nations.  It is somewhat common in bathrooms there, and sometimes in other rooms. 

Closer to home, I used to watch This Old House on PBS (it has become too commercialized for me, and I have lost interest), and the Concord barn project (http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tv/house-project/overview/0,,197946,00.html) (originally aired way back in 1989) had in-floor radiant heating.

In-floor heating seems most common in bathrooms and in the homes of people wealthy enough to do a This-Old-House-scale renovation.

I agree somewhat about This Old House.  My real issue is that they seem to address the home problems of those in a certain income bracket that can afford to support WBGH.  There's less for the regular do-it-yourselfer than there once was.  It still makes a lot of sense to watch it periodically if you're a homeowner.  One episode can save you a lot of money if you learn the right trick.

My parent's master bath has heated tile flooring, and it's been used maybe a handful of times since installation in 2005. I've never met anyone else with this feature. Worst part was how long it took to warm up. I can't blame people for not installing them. They are cool when you're demonstrating the features of your newly-remodeled house, but once the *wow*-factor has died down, it's not really all that useful unless you plan your shower an hour in advance.

Yes, underfloor heating takes a long time to get going; this is another reason it hasn't been widely adopted.  The house in Alaska I stayed in that had it had been built as a custom job by the then owner's son, who acted as his own construction manager and wrote his own HVAC specifications.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on July 15, 2015, 07:34:32 PM
In-floor heating seems most common in bathrooms and in the homes of people wealthy enough to do a This-Old-House-scale renovation.

I agree somewhat about This Old House.  My real issue is that they seem to address the home problems of those in a certain income bracket that can afford to support WBGH.  There's less for the regular do-it-yourselfer than there once was.  It still makes a lot of sense to watch it periodically if you're a homeowner.  One episode can save you a lot of money if you learn the right trick.

The craftsmen and tradesmen on the show are still very talented. 

As for income brackets, I agree - they did one project house in Boston's Jamaica Plain that was deliberately and clearly geared to a homeowner of modest means, which was one of the best series of the Steve Thomas era.

Random note - I took a course in transportation logistics from Ed Morash while he was at the University of Maryland.  I believe Ed is a brother of Russ Morash, the father of This Old House.

Quote from: Pete from Boston on July 15, 2015, 08:54:46 AM
is it possible to achieve those higher efficiencies using powered exhaust to remove more condensation, or is that just not done on oil burners?  Currently I only notice it on new gas burners.

No. No matter how hard you force the air out, if the exhaust temperature is too low, you are going to have condensation before it exits. Which, with oil, will eat away at the stack itself, potentially creating interior leaks and thus a major safety hazard, even if it does not drip back down to the boiler itself.

Quote from: cpzilliacus on July 15, 2015, 11:21:44 AM
Regarding electric generation, don't forget that some of the electricity that gets "created" at a generating station is "lost" from the point where it gets sent out onto the transmission grid until it arrives at the customer premises for use.

I have read estimates that range from as low as 6% to as high as 15%, depending on an assortment of factors that I am not qualified to discuss, except perhaps for distance - the longer the distance from the generator to the customer, the greater the loss (all else being equal).

Those estimates are reasonable, and yes, distance is the most obvious reason. Weather will also have an impact, since the wires will have more resistance when they are hotter.

Then you have problems with reactive loads (such as anything with a motor) dropping the power factor in the system. Power factor is a tricky concept, the wiki article on it  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_factor)makes for some nice light reading. Or, if that's too much for you, we can explain it with beer:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fb0s8hVv.jpg&hash=0c8ba5954d9d3925295408842cc275c1ad79e3b0)

Basically, some types of electrical equipment make electricity "foam" when supplied. So while from the utility's perspective they have served you a pint of electricity, you have less than a pint that you can actually drink because of the foam. Bad power factor = more foam, less beer.